LISBON, Portugal – A map that shows where a man was seen carrying a child on the night Madeleine McCann vanished was released yesterday, along with pictures of the McCanns' vacation apartment and thousands of pages of evidence compiled by police investigating Madeleine's disappearance.
One of the documents released by Portuguese detectives lists the police questions Kate McCann refused to answer after being named an arguida — or official suspect — in the case, and another showed that detectives claimed Madeleine's DNA had been found in her parents' hire car, despite a British scientist's warning days earlier that tests were inconclusive.
The revelation led a McCann family friend to accuse Portuguese officers of trying to extract a confession from Madeleine's father by lying about the results of forensic analysis.
The McCanns' spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, told Sky News: "I can confirm that the Portuguese police put it to Gerry as a fact that Madeleine's DNA had been found in the apartment and the vehicle, when it is now clear that that was not the case, and that the initial FSS [Forensic Science Service] report had said the findings were inconclusive.
"You have to ask what the police were trying to achieve by over-presenting evidence that they did not have, and clearly could not claim to have."
Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family's holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz on May 3 last year as her parents dined with friends nearby.
Despite a huge police investigation and massive coverage in the Portuguese and British media, she has not been found.
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